Paradise Lost
by pineappurus
Summary: Set after the events of 5x10, it follows Rachel Duncan and what happens to her after her sisters gain their freedom at the expense of hers. She is stripped of everything that made her who she is, she has a target on her back, and she's missing one eye. This is the story of her redemption.
1. Running

_**Author's Note:** I read the Orphan Black Comic featuring Rachel and I just HAD to write her a redemption story. This one is for all the other Rachel lovers out there~ I don't think she's so much different from her other sisters because I believe at her core, she just wants a li'l sisterly love, yknow? And a child._

 _Also, I'm still thinking of better story titles. Please PM me or leave a review for a suggestion or go over to my askbox in tumblr (my tumblr handle is: janyolski) and give me a suggestion! I will credit you for the title. You can also suggest chapter titles! Thank you very much~_

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

"Rachel, you know you can't come in."

Felix says it the way a mother admonishing a child would, for wanting to go into an inflatable bouncy-house when the other kids already playing inside hate her - firmly but with a tinge of pity. She feels disgusted with herself - disgusted that she was at the receiving end of pity from someone like Felix Dawkins.

But she was mostly disgusted that she actually _wanted_ to go inside. She _wanted_ to be with her _sisters_. She _craved_ what they had.

Love. Freedom. Peace. _Each other_. _Family_.

With Ethan and Susan Duncan actually dead, Aldous Leekie shot and post-mortem decapitated, Neolution and Dyad up in flames, and Ferdinand dead with a gaping hole in his throat, Rachel Duncan is truly undeniably alone.

As much as she keeps thinking that she's used to this after growing up as a self-aware lab rat and eventual corporate mogul, her loneliness this time was different. Before she had anger to motivate her, anger to control: anger and ambition fueled her being and it was enough reason to wake up each morning and look forward to the next day.

But now, Rachel is just empty. No company. No parents. No conspiracies. No lovers. No one but herself. And she's even missing an eye.

 _Broken_.

But she can't ever reveal that to anyone, especially not Felix. So, she responds with something Rachel Duncan would say; she holds her head high without looking Felix in the eye.

 _She couldn't bring herself to look Felix in the eye._

She gives him the envelope and hopes, _genuinely_ _hopes_ , in her heart that this gesture would at least mean _something_.

* * *

"It was Kira. She asked me to come find you."

Rachel Duncan prided herself in being three steps ahead of everyone around her. But in all her years, this was something she would never have predicted; Cosima Niehaus coming to see her after she's flown to a different country with a different name, at one of the many 7-elevens where she works as a nightshift cashier at.

Since the destruction of Neolution, all of the LEDA clones were free. All except her. Rachel Duncan became the number one target of the remaining heads and board members. They still had connections and deep pockets, all the means to put a bullet through her head. Of course Rachel wouldn't let them. Her body was her own and she was not going to let anybody dictate how she dies.

No, Rachel Duncan would live on her own terms. So, she went off the grid with the little money she had left using a fake passport she had prepared for emergencies. She flew to a country where it was always warm, like she and Ferdinand always wanted. She used the money for two months of advance rent for the crapbox that's now been her apartment for the last ten months and made sure to stock up on food and supplies. She also managed to illegally purchase a small gun to protect herself with. She thanked the country's loose gun control laws for this. In no time, Rachel found herself blending into the city like a chameleon.

And now her dreadlock-sporting clone is standing in front of her, miles and continents away from Canada or Minnesota, where it all began.

"You didn't answer my question, Cosima. What do you want?"

Her own real voice sounded foreign to her ears. She had to drop her accent and change her voice, pretend to be another out-of-luck and broke American to not draw suspicion to herself, and to get the job she has now. She was already a foreigner in a third world country; she didn't want to stick out like a sore thumb with her British accent. She's had to dumb herself down and make up a background story for herself.

Some nights as she lay in bed waiting for sleep, she wonders if she's ever even been a _real_ person, if she's even ever had her own personality that was not touched by Neolution or the need to be better than the other clones.

She thinks of that girl in the video, laughing with her parents, playing in the grass, and she has her answer.

"Rachel, I uh... This is going to sound like bullshit but, I just wanted to see if you were… _okay_?"

Rachel's steel cracks from the sheer shock brought by her clone's words. She doesn't stop the laugh that escapes her throat. She's glad that it's two o'clock in the morning and there's no other customer in the convenience store.

Incredulous. Unbelievable. _Bullshit_.

For a moment she almost wants to crack a joke.

" _Do you have hidden cameras there? Am I in an episode of Punked?_ "

But she looks at Cosima and there is nothing but sincerity and concern in those eyes that are biological mirrors of hers. Well, they used to be.

No. Cosima's eyes were warm and alive. Always have been, even when she was sick and almost dying. Rachel knew her eyes weren't like that. She looked at herself in the mirror often enough to know that her eyes were _dead_.

"Look, I don't expect you to believe me but Kira called me a few hours ago and she was worried. You know how she is. You know she… _feels_ things."

Cosima's hands wave around in the air as she speaks. Rachel knew exactly how Kira is. More than anyone. Probably more than Sarah did. She'd studied Kira's biology and abilities. She knew that besides extraordinary fast healing, Kira had a deep sense of perception of this world and had a connection to all of them.

"Kira told me you're going to kill yourself."

Cosima's words are a thundering blow and the walls she built around herself crumbles.

It wasn't true that she was going to kill herself. She already did. Or at least she tried to, last night.

She cried no tears as she put the barrel of the gun inside her mouth, only felt a gaping cold emptiness in her core. She stayed that way for five minutes, still, like a mannequin positioned to illustrate suicides, she guesses. She willed her finger to just pull the trigger. Pull the trigger and end it.

But she couldn't. So she put the gun down after a while and went to sleep.

Rachel suddenly felt the missing emotions from last night drop like a weight on her chest all at once. Her uniform felt restrictive and she couldn't breathe. She was about to start hyperventilating and she recognized the coming onslaught of a panic attack. Her mouth goes dry and she swallows and tries to even her breathing.

Cosima eyed her and noticed the slight change in Rachel's demeanor. The scientist knew she touched a nerve - a big red angry nerve that's probably about to burst. She decides to act quickly to salvage the situation and Rachel's pride.

"Okay, Delphine and I will be in the country for a month. LEDAs to cure and other science stuff, y'know. Here, take this."

Cosima holds out her business card.

"Call me. Talk to me. I just wanna have lunch with you."

Rachel hesitates but takes the proffered business card. Cosima gives her a small gentle smile, nods and takes her leave; Delphine was waiting for her outside the store, smoking beside their rented car.

She tries to suppress it, nip whatever hopeful thoughts and ideas bubble up into the surface of her consciousness, but there was something there… Rachel was feeling something she hasn't felt for a long time.

The chimes placed strategically over the door rings to let her know there's a new customer. She pockets the card and takes a deep breath, turning her attention to the new customer and addressing them as she was trained to do so.

She considers calling Cosima in a few days' time.


	2. Adapting

_Blinking. Blinking. There are too many lights._

 _There's a hand. It's holding martini glass, twirling the stem between its thumb and forefinger._

 _Everything's so hazy yet bright at the same time._

 _The hand shakes then shatters the glass into pieces against the table. The hand is left holding the base and the stem. It turns the stem around, holding it so that the pointed broken end is aimed at you._

 _You hear your heartbeat in your ears and it drowns out all the other sounds around you, until it's the only thing you hear. The hand comes closer and closer._

 _You realize the hand is yours._

 _You hear a sick squishy sound. Everything's bloody and crimson and just searing, mind-numbing pain._

Rachel shoots up in her bed covered in sweat, mouth open, gasping for air. It's dark and she figures it's the middle of the night. Her hand goes up to her left eye. The glass replica is still there, still cold, still unseeing. She breathes heavily, and wipes the sweat off her brow, her neck, her collarbones. She gets up and off of the bed unsteadily, goes to her kitchen and drinks a glass of water. She leans against the kitchen sink as she drinks. Her heart beat pounding in her ears and her hand shaking as she sets down the glass.

Rachel Duncan was a powerful corporate mogul and a woman of science. Rachel Duncan was also just a broken child underneath all the armor.

So, Rachel Duncan was no stranger to nightmares. It's just that tonight's dream had been so vivid, like a reel playing in her head; like those videos of her childhood that she kept replaying over and over 'til she's numbed once again.

She fights to even out her breathing, wills the fright off of her chest. She closes her eyes and tries to meditate. She was the one in control of her body, in control of her emotions. It was never the other way around. And she keeps telling herself this until the last aftershock of that nightmare has left her.

Or so she thinks.

Rachel goes back to her bed and her knees are shaking. She lies down, tries to close her eyes but finds that she can't bear to keep them shut. She sits up and reaches for her phone on top of the desk drawer beside her bed. She pulls open the top drawer that contains her gun, bullets, and important papers. She grabs a small purse and gets the card she hid inside it.

She hesitates but finally dials Cosima's number.

* * *

Cosima is sleeping soundly in the suite she's been sharing with her girlfriend for the past week. Her breaths are even and her face is buried in Delphine's soft blonde curls. Her breaths even and her face burShe's still having difficulty adjusting to the time difference, even after going from country to country for almost a year now. She reads everything and anything on her phone until she feels sleepy, from news articles on new scientific developments to random wikipedia pages on Walt Disney's earliest works. She fell asleep with her hand holding the phone on her shoulder. Eventually, the phone slipped down to the pillow then to the bed, and in her squirming and turning, the phone was now lodged between the bed and her shoulder blade.

Her phone starts ringing and vibrating like mad.

"HOLY JESUS!"

Cosima shot up in surprise which disturbed her also sleeping girlfriend.

" _Merde. Cosima…?_ "

Delphine looks at her with the biggest pissed off, W-T-F face. Cosima rubs her own temples and looks at her lover apologetically.

"Sorry, babe. Someone's calling."

Cosima swipes to answer the call with a very pissed off _"Hello?"_

The line is quiet for a few seconds. Cosima checks to see if the caller hung up. They hadn't and the seconds of the call kept counting. Cosima tried again, sounding even more pissed off.

" _HELLO?"_

The voice that came through from the other line surprised her.

"Cosima… I, uh… I apologize for disturbing you in the middle of the night."

It was Rachel Duncan. She sounded small, uncertain, and scared. Cosima immediately broke for the woman she once considered her enemy. It also stupefies her that Rachel Duncan just apologized to her.

" _Rachel?"_

Delphine's eyes go wide.

"Yes. Um. I called because…. Well, I was off night shift duty tonight and…"

Rachel cleared her throat. Cosima thinks Rachel realized that she was coming off as nervous and insecure by rambling and gathered herself.

"I called about that lunch invitation..?"

Cosima couldn't believe what she was hearing. The corner of her lips twitched upward.

Cosima Niehaus would never in her wildest dreams consider Rachel Duncan a friend. The other woman had made her and Delphine's life hell for years, had used Kira, and was more than happy to sacrifice the rest of them for her own personal gain.

But Cosima couldn't help but think about the night Rachel found her in that small clinic on that cursed island, when she was struggling to inject the cure into herself; how Rachel had taken the needle, even as she primarily acted for her own interest (to test the cure on another LEDA before doing it on herself). Rachel Duncan had seen her panic like an animal caught in a trap and she had spoken to her softly, touched her reassuringly, calmed her enough so that she could receive the vaccine with less pain.

Cosima saw something, felt something radiate from Rachel Duncan that she never thought in a million years was possible - a glimmer of warmth and empathy.

"Yes. Of course. We can have lunch later. I can pick you up. Text me your address."

* * *

Rachel runs the brush through her hair for the hundredth time. She looks at herself in the mirror. She's had to let go of her signature pristine bob for a less precise cut; her old hairstyle simply did not fit her story of a broke, swindled foreigner. She still tried to keep it somehow similar albeit a little longer, a little less symmetrical.

Rachel looks at this stranger in the mirror and studies her. This woman wore plain clothes, a gray t-shirt dress that looked like it had been worn too many times, instead of the expensive business outfits that radiated power. This woman did not radiate power. This woman shopped at thrift stores instead of having a personal tailor at her disposal. This woman looked shorter, hunched a little (as part of her swindled foreigner act), instead of standing tall and proud, like the child of renowned scientists would, like the head of a corporate giant would. She thinks it might also be because this woman wore slip-ons and loafers instead of Louboutins, Jimmy Choos, or Manolo Blahniks.

Rachel had finished getting ready thirty minutes ago. She gave Cosima her address and the scientist said she'd come by and pick Rachel up by 11:30 a.m. So, she was passing time staring at the person she'd become, pretending to brush her hair for lack of anything else to occupy her hands with.

It was 11:26. Cosima would be here any minute.

Not that Rachel was too eager for her to arrive. No. She'd just always been punctual.

But she suddenly remembers the LEDA monitor reports that describe Cosima as always tardy.

Rachel puts down the brush on the desk of her vanity with a _clack_.

No point in waiting like that. Might as well occupy myself with something more… time consuming.

Rachel opens the old bulky television set that came with her apartment and sits on her bed. The TV displays static for five seconds before she gets up and hammers top with her fist. The static crackles. Rachel hits it again, and again. Before Rachel could bring down her fist for the fourth time, the TV crackles and the screen comes to life. A talk show was on but it was unfortunately in the country's native language. Rachel didn't mind, however, opting to use moments like these as chances to familiarize herself with the language and learn it.

It doesn't even enters Rachel's mind that she's sunk low enough that she has to beat up her television set before it starts working. Rachel just watches the show intently, parroting the few words she recognizes.

She keeps doing this until there's a honking outside of her door followed by knocking a few moments later. She gets up, grabs her purse, pulls the plug of the TV from the socket, and heads to the door.

"Hi."

Cosima smiles at her and waves. There's that warmth again. Rachel subconsciously wonders where the other woman keeps all that warmth.

Does she hide it under those dread locks of hers? Rachel muses.

"Cosima. Hello."

Cosima steps aside and gestures to her rental.

"Let's go?"

Rachel inspects the inside of the vehicle before answering.

"No Dr. Cormier?"

Cosima shakes her head and nonchalantly throws a hand in the air.

"Nope. She has other things to take care of."

Rachel raises an eyebrow, curious.

"Why? Are you afraid of making me into your third wheel?"

Cosima furrows her brow at the short-haired woman. She chooses to ignore the familiar sarcastic yet insulting tone Rachel's voice seems to naturally possess.

"You know, I'll take that as an attempt at humor, Rachel. Let's go."

The two women get into the car and Cosima drives off.


	3. Coping

The two LEDAs spent the first few minutes of the car ride not speaking; Rachel tried to contain her nerves in awkward silence, hiding her mannerism of picking at the underside of her nails and its sides, her now developing calluses from the new experience of working with her hands, while Cosima just enjoyed the songs playing from her phone connected through bluetooth to the car's speakers. Cosima didn't want to push Rachel and chose to forego any attempts at conversation not wanting to suffocate the woman. She also figured that Rachel was already dealing with so much internally that it would be unkind of her to pressure the short-haired clone into small talk. She'd rather Rachel came out of her protective walls herself and initiated the conversation.

The song shuffles to Adam Shaikh's Water Prayer remix and Cosima instinctively starts tapping her fingers and rocking her head to the thumping of the beats. Rachel looks at her then turns her head forward to go back to watching the road ahead.

"What music is this?"

Rachel breaks her silence. Cosima is pleasantly surprised, looks to the woman in the passenger seat, smiling.

"It's called 'Water Prayer'. It's a remix by Adam Shaikh."

 _Well, bless her ears,_ Cosima thinks. _Rachel speaks. She's attempting small talk!_

Cosima's smile grows. She rests her elbow on the car door at her side and bites the tip of her thumb out of habit.

"Do you like it?"

Cosima decides to push her luck a little, since Rachel initiated talking, anyway. Who knows? Maybe Rachel will surprise her with her music tastes. Maybe Rachel listens to Eminem to deal with her anger, or something. That would be interesting.

Rachel tilts her head slightly, to the direction of the car speaker on the door at her side, as if analyzing the music.

"It's… interesting. I don't think I've ever heard music like this."

Cosima whips her head to look at Rachel in surprise before turning her eyes back on the road.

"No way… You've never heard of reggae?"

Rachel eyes Cosima.

"Reggae? Is that what the genre is called?"

Cosima nods.

"Yeah. It originated from jamaica. This song is under the hip-hop reggae subgenre. You know hiphop, right?"

Cosima moves the hand that wasn't controlling the wheel around as she explains, then looks at Rachel briefly after the question. Rachel shoots her a glare.

"Do you think I'm stupid? Just because I haven't heard of Reggae that doesn't mean I'm completely oblivious to all of music."

The dread locked woman's eyes widen. _Oh shit, I offended her._

"What? No! Not at all."

Cosima bites her thumb again then mumbles.

"I just asked Rachel. Sorry."

Rachel nods and looks down. She goes back to picking at her nails. She would never be able to count the times she' made herself bled as a child, picking at her nails, breaking skin in her attempts to take a hold of her anger. As she grew older, she learned how to master her emotions and intricately wove mask over mask over mask to make herself the woman she is.

 _Was. The woman she was._ Rachel once again reminds herself that she's not that person anymore. She hasn't been for the last year; since she'd saved Kira Manning and gouged out her own eye.

Cosima looks at her in concern, getting the feeling that Rachel was lost in thought. Rachel catches the look and realizes she probably made the other woman feel uncomfortable by snapping at her.

Rachel feels an emotion that's completely new to her: guilt. A tinge of guilt touches the edges of Rachel's consciousness, barely there yet with her having to be on top of her emotions all the time, she knew how to identify her feelings immediately. She used to identify her emotions and crush them immediately, drown them out with ambition or rage. But she had nothing left to be ambitious for and her rage had all been sucked out of her.

Rachel Duncan decides to do something with the guilt that old Rachel Duncan would never do.

"I know hip-hop."

Cosima's pulled out of her thoughts when Rachel speaks suddenly. Rachel opens her mouth to continue.

"I listened to Eminem once. But mostly I prefer meditation sounds and classical."

Cosima's brain tried to process what her clone just said.

 _Kanye West._

Cosima gives Rachel a smile.

 _I fucking knew it._

* * *

The restaurant was a nice little cafe, by no means fancy. It was a little place that served good local coffee, teas, simple pastas, salads, and sandwiches. Rachel chose this place specifically because the other people in it would be too busy minding their own business and it was quiet; the patrons were mostly students of the nearby state college and duos or trios of friends who are just hanging out. No loud kids running around or families. The two of them would blend in perfectly - just two women, sisters probably, having lunch.

Rachel also always wanted to try the place out. It looked so peaceful and people raved about the coffee. She never did though. She didn't see the point of going and hanging there by herself when she had coffee at home.

There is two tables left unoccupied. Cosima gestures to the one beside the glass window where the noontime sunshine illuminated the spot nicely. It looked warm and inviting, much like her lunch companion, so Rachel nods and moves to sit.

Cosima stays standing, pointing her thumb to the counter.

"So, what'll you have? My treat."

Rachel's pride feels like a hairball stuck in her throat. The words 'do you think I'm so poor I can't afford my own lunch?' struggles to come stumbling out of her mouth. She knows Cosima is just being kind to her. And she wasn't actually earning even a cent above this country's minimum wage, so she swallows her pride down and wills it to settle quietly in the pit of her stomach.

"I'll have their tea of the day and a plate of linguine in red sauce."

Rachel says it quietly, but loud enough for Cosima to hear.

"Tea and linguine. Gotcha."

Rachel studies Cosima as she stands in line behind a guy who is ordering americanos to go. Cosima was wearing a nice dress with a tie-dye design that hugged her torso but fell loosely from the waist down, she had a hand on her hip and the other was typing on her phone.

 _Probably texting Delphine,_ Rachel thinks. The French scientist must have checked to see if she murdered Cosima or something.

Cosima returns to their table, pulling the chair in front of Rachel and plopping herself onto it.

"Twenty minutes 'till the food's done."

"Hmm."

Rachel nods absentmindedly, looking at a spot on the table. It's now Cosima's turn to study her and the dreadlocked woman sees the distant look in the other woman's eyes and wonders what the blonde was thinking about.

Cosima decides to dare ask.

"So… Penny for your thoughts?"

Cosima tilts her head, waiting for a change in the blonde's expression. It takes a few beats before Rachel looks up, realizing that she was asked a question.

"Oh, well… I was wondering how many LEDAs have you cured so far? You are on your way to inoculate the others of the 274, yes?"

"We're on number 54 at the moment, but we've gotten in touch with all of them and we're arranging the schedules."

Cosima pauses and smiles, then continues.

"None of that would be possible if you hadn't given us that list, though. Neither is the defeat of Neolution. So thank you, Rachel."

Rachel's eyes widen as they snap up and lock onto Cosima's. Hazel staring into hazel. There it was again, Cosima's warmth; the smile that reaches her eyes. There was nothing but gratitude there no matter how long Rachel searched them for any hint of sarcasm or insincerity.

Cosima really thanked her and Rachel didn't know what to feel; she was at a loss for words.

Rachel clears her throat. She gathers herself as much as she can.

"Well, it's not like I didn't act in my own self-interest. Believe me, I didn't do that for any of you. I did it for myself."

Rachel's eyes flicker to her right at the end of her statement and Cosima knows she's lying. The scientist just smiles wider and nods. Rachel catches the smile and narrows her eyes.

"What? Did I say something funny?"

Rachel keeps picking at her nails and fidgeting. She stares down Cosima but the woman's smile didn't falter. The dreadlocked woman shakes her head.

"No, Rachel, you didn't. I wasn't laughing either."

Rachel sits up straighter, holds her chin high and folds her arms in front of her. _Good_ , she thinks.

The barrista calls out their order number and Cosima stands up starts heading to the counter to grab their food. Cosima wasn't done talking, however. She stops beside Rachel and places a hand on the woman's shoulder. She feels Rachel jump at her touch but doesn't pull away her hand. The short-haired woman looks up.

"Rachel, I meant it, though. Thank you."


	4. Changing

**Summary:** What happens when you put a scientist unafraid to call bullshit and a stone cold bitch together at a small table for lunch? Well...

 **AN:** Apologies for taking a while to update. Halloween was busy but fun. It was a little hard to get into the right headspace to write this update since I'm figuring out how to execute the change in tone. Some parts get a little ramble-y but I was channeling the characters' overthinking.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Please leave comments or kudos as they fuel my writing!

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Changing**

There has probably never been anyone who has walked this earth more self-aware than Rachel Duncan. She knew she was apart from the human race at age 6 because she is a clone. Then she knew she was apart from her fellow clones because she was raised by their creators with the knowledge that she is a clone. So, it's safe to say Rachel Duncan grew up with a terrible case of narcissism, superiority complex, and a personality disorder and obviously has a bad habit of overthinking everything; but these were things Rachel was aware of, too. Rachel was aware of everything, of her anger and her issues, of her strengths and weaknesses, of the things she can bend that won't break, and of the things she's had to break to get what she wanted. And her life has always been a matter of that. Everything was logical in her life, every cause and every effect. She'd developed those issues because of her upbringing. She'd made her choices because those were the ones that provided an advantage.

And then she'd cut her own eye out, saved the child of the one person that hated her the most, and worked in cohorts with that person's foster mother to bring about the destruction of Neolution that ended up stripping her of any form of power and advantage and putting a target on her back. These all made sense, even if it left her running and hiding like this.

And for all of Cosima Niehaus' academic accolades and scientific achievements, her clone was not making sense to her.

 _Thank you?_

Rachel Duncan just had absolutely no response to that. She wasn't even sure exactly what it meant. _Gratitude?_ What for? For helping them defeat the movement that brought on their creation? For providing the LEDA list?

But these were all self-serving. She'd wanted to free herself so she agreed to cooperate with Siobhan. Plus, it was with Siobhan's help that she was rescued from the Dyad building after she'd gouged out her own eye. She'd given the LEDA list because she'd thought that maybe if she did that there was a chance the other clones would provide her sanctuary, or at least help her in running away from the people who would kill her, but it was also logical that they didn't. Or was it a thank you _for the lunch_? But wasn't Cosima the one paying for it, anyway? Wasn't Cosima the one who drove them?

If anything she should be thanking Cosima. But, of course, she's too narcissistic and proud for that.

Cosima studies Rachel from across the small cafe table. The scientist watches her clone's internal turmoil from her words of gratitude. It was almost comical in away, Cosima thinks. She could almost picture out a crack video where there are car crashes and nuclear explosions with mushroom clouds behind Rachel, as her brain is probably short-circuiting from trying to comprehend the gratitude thrown at her without any ties of expectations of anything in return.

 _And Cosima is right._

Rachel's brain is figuratively short-circuiting. It's almost funny, then Cosima feels everything make a sudden depressive turn when she recognizes the barely visible signs that Rachel is currently having a panic attack. She notices Rachel's breathing coming out in short quick breaths, the fidgeting hands that were picking at the sides of nails under their table, the clenching of the jaw, and the blinking. She thinks about all Rachel's been through; how the short-haired woman has probably built herself around this persona of the epitome of self-awareness and self-control because the woman was in control of literally nothing her whole life - not the tests, not her education, not her monitors-turned-partners, and especially not anything right now when her previous life was burned to a crisp.

So, Cosima scrambles to say anything, anything, that would pull the other woman out of her internal conflict.

"Anyway…"

Cosima starts off. She sees that Rachel's eyes are still distant and the woman is still stuck inside her own head. Rachel's hands were under the table, still possessed by her small tick. Cosima goes through everything and anything she can say and starts to panic herself. She looks outside the cafe for anything, any topic. The weather? No, that's not distracting enough. Then she sees a woman walking her dog and it clicks inside Cosima's mind.

 _Dog. Nice weather. Nice day._

 _Dog. Day._

 _Dog days…_

And the song "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + The Machine plays inside her head and it was just perfect.

"Hey, Rachel, you said you liked Eminem once but you're more of a meditation, instrumental music type, right?"

Cosima watches the exact moment where Rachel blinks away the glaze in her eyes, looks at her, and focuses on her. The scientist breathes a sigh of relief. Rachel looks a little disoriented but Cosima knows she has the woman's attention now.

"Well… I mean, music, right?"

Rachel tilts her head and thinks this one is one of the odd clones, very talkative and random. She also likes moving those hands around while she talks, almost like she's flailing sometimes, Rachel thinks.

"Mhmm. Yes. That's… incredibly random, Cosima."

Cosima chuckles nervously, but also goes _phew,_ mentally. The scientist holds her hand up in the air, and opens her mouth to say something.

But the scientist has absolutely no rebuttal to that - _she has always been a weird, random person, even as a child_ \- then closes her mouth.

Rachel watches Cosima's face and almost chuckles, almost. The short haired woman catches herself and stops her quiet laughter from surfacing. She expertly dials down her emotions to a small upward twitching of her lip. Cosima catches the change in Rachel's expression anyway, and arches an eyebrow.

"Huh. Yeah, okay, you're right."

Cosima, looks down, pushes her eyeglasses up her nose and lets out her own little chuckle.

"Okay, in my defense, Rachel, I was about to recommend to you this really sick musician that I'm sure you'd fall in love with."

Rachel raises an eyebrow, feeling more comfortable and more herself now.

"Haven't you heard? I don't have a heart. I'm absolutely incapable of love."

Cosima snorts. Yeah, sure.

Rachel narrows her eyes. Cosima rolls hers. The scientist swears to herself to get her clone to drop the bitch act someday. She's succeeded with her other clones; she definitely got Sarah to drop the punk bitch vibe around her and Alison to drop the uptight suburban mom attitude around the sestras. Helena was still Helena, of course. Cosima decides to make it her mission to make Rachel feel comfortable enough around her to just be herself - _still a bitch_ but at least one who doesn't have to guard her emotions all the time.

"Yeah, okay. That's beside the point. I'm saying, they're great and they make great music. They're called Florence and The Machine. I have one of their albums in the car and you're totally taking it home to listen to it."

Rachel blinks. In all of her musings on how this lunch is going to go, she'd never considered they'll be talking about music. But she figures that this was nice. It felt normal, something just two people at a cafe would be doing - making small talk while waiting for the food.

Speaking of food, a waiter comes up with their orders on a tray in one hand. Cosima smiles at him, remembering to leave tips later. The smell of the hot, freshly cooked meals hits her nose and she realizes that this is one of the better meals she's had since coming to this country.

Cosima takes a fork then points at her lasagna.

"This looks amazing. _Bon appetit,_ Rachel."

Cosima digs in and Rachel joins her.

They finish the meal slowly, both taking their time. After the initial awkwardness, Cosima decided that maybe the best way to get her clone to open up is to open up herself. So, she starts talking about her childhood in San Francisco, on the boats.

"You know, my earliest childhood memory is our old record player on our boat, playing Elvis or The Beatles every night after dinner. So if you're wondering why I seem to be big on music and whatnot, blame it there."

Rachel takes a sip of her tea.

"I wasn't really wondering, but thanks for sharing."

Cosima resists the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, the scientist looks her clone straight in the eye and deadpan shuts her down.

"Yeah, you're welcome. Maybe you'd be less of a bitch if you had more music in you."

Rachel's eyes widen.

 _Did she just…?_

 _Oh, she did._

And Rachel's facade crumbles in the best way. The short haired LEDA bursts out laughing. Cosima doesn't resist and joins her. The laughter dies down and Rachel nods then tilts her head afterwards.

"Cheeky."

Cosima nods, holding a hand in the air as if to say, _yup, that's me._

"Well, I actually think you're right, Cosima. But who would I be if I wasn't a bitch?"

Cosima smirks and nods.

"Too true, Rachel. Too true."


End file.
